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Maple Leafs are making an obvious Matthew Knies mistake originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Matthew Knies is playing through an injury.
The Toronto Maple Leafs' talented forward has admitted it publicly, and it raises an obvious question: Why?
The Leafs have nothing left to play for this season in a positive sense. The best thing that can happen is they earn a top-five draft pick and keep their first-rounder, which goes to the Boston Bruins if it finishes outside the top-five.
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Knies also was involved in trade rumors before the deadline. If he's eventually going to get moved, you'd want him healthy, wouldn't you?
For what it's worth, this is what Knies has said about his injury:
“It’s kind of an injury that I don’t think could get much worse. So I don’t think that there’s any risk for me playing. It’s obviously not comfortable playing through it, but if it’s not going to get worse, then there’s no problem with me playing. Then I’m going to play.”
This is by no means a critique of Knies. He's totally justified in wanting to play.
Professional athletes are competitors. They don't ever want to be told that they shouldn't go out on the stage to do their job.
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Knies wants to play, and for now, the Maple Leafs are letting him do so. He earns some toughness points, but no one was questioning that in Knies' game, anyway.
The reality is that Toronto should be looking at next season, not this one. Auston Matthews is already out for the season and needs surgery.
Everything the Maple Leafs do right now should be to have the best team for game one of the 2026-27 season. Playing Knies right now doesn't seem to align with what should be that obvious goal.
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